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The key is not to get overwhelmed.
I am old and easily flustered and I constantly run into brick walls but I back off relax seek help and eventually overcome that issue and on to the next.
If you have a DSLR start with that on the mount...you can find the Celestial South Pole by pointing South and taking star trails and adjust the polar axis so their centre appears in the centre of your photo..and the mount needs to be switched off to do this...next figure how to make it track and take short exposures with the camera of any bright star that you can see and learn how to stack them in Deep Sky Stacker ..a free program...your DSLR has a 30 second exposure that will run while you let it if you have a remote control...which you really should get or an intervalometer which is just a remote camera control that allows various exposures.
At this stage you could probably will have find out how to do a star alignment...and I note here although I have had a number of Goto mounts I never star allign or use the Goto..all I wanted out of a mount was to track...so we can learn star alignment together..well I tried it recently cause I now need to do it because I am going to link my mount to planitarium software but my point is you can do a lot of photography without ever doing a star alignment...and I could not do it as soon mole as it is..well I did it but things were not where they should be..so a little brick wall I guess.
So perhaps leave trying the scope and camera until you get the mount tracking simply so you only have one area to worry about..you may get thru my suggested steps in a couple of nights or it may take months depending on a whole range of things..just be patient...first see if you can assemble the mount and point it ruffly South...then take some static shots..one step at a time...and please let us know your progress and ask if you hit a brick wall...sometimes we use jargon which when explained makes things simple..like I will say get CSP sorted..what does that mean to someone just starting...I need to be pulled up and asked what I mean..
Good luck let us know how things go.
Alex
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